SANTA CLARITA – A West Ranch Town Council member’s Internet commentary calling Canyon Country a “cornucopia of crime” has generated a bounty of reaction.

One online commentary from a Canyon Country resident called the statement about the eastside community “snobbish.” Another described Stevenson Ranch, where the critical council member lives, as “Plastictown.”

The over-the-top Internet sparring match comes at a time when the West Ranch Town Council is spurring discussion of how the communities west of Interstate 5 should be governed.

The options are: form a new city, become part of the city of Santa Clarita or stay unincorporated county territory.

Dave Bossert, president of the West Ranch Town Council, made the eastside community of Canyon Country part of the discussion when he described it as a “cornucopia of crime” in an online commentary at Westranchbeacon.com, a Web site he created. Bossert suggested some Santa Clarita residents want to annex westside areas for a revenue base.

“They want to make sure they get their hands on more revenue to pump into the dilapidated and crime ridden area on the east side of the city,” he wrote.

Bossert based his assessment of Canyon Country’s crime rate on daily e-mail updates sent out by the Sheriff’s Department. Bossert says Canyon Country seems to have many methamphetamine-related arrests.

“He’s painting with this big wide brush that Canyon Country is this hotbed of crime,” said Canyon Country resident Chris Austin, 44, who regularly posts to another community Web site, scvtalk.com.

“I’m sorry, there’s a lot of good hardworking people (in Canyon Country,) and maybe we don’t have the big pocketbooks they have out there … but to paint us all as dilapidated and crime-ridden is ridiculous,” Austin said.

In an April Fools’ Day joke, scvtalk.com on Sunday posted a fake news story that Bossert proposed building a massive wall to protect the westside communities, creating a “Green Zone” like the one in Baghdad.

On Wednesday, the West Ranch Town Council will begin naming members of a committee to communicate with residents about how the westside should be governed.

Bossert said he will be co-chairman of the committee, and that he remains impartial about whether the westside should form its own city or be annexed.

“Clearly anybody who criticizes anything is opening themselves up to be criticized for making any kind of comment,” he said. “I simply was surprised at the amount of methamphetamine and drug arrests that are going on in that part of the valley, and so pointing it out doesn’t make me a snob.”

Crime statistics released recently by the Sheriff’s Department showed that Canyon Country, the most densely populated community in the Santa Clarita Valley, had 320 narcotics-related incidents in 2006, while the westside communities had 68 such incidents.

The 2006 statistics also indicate that Canyon Country had more total crimes, with 4,152 incidents, compared with 1,494 for the westside communities.

But one of the most notorious crimes ever to occur in the Santa Clarita Valley happened in Stevenson Ranch in 2001, when federal agents tried to serve a warrant on a man in a Brooks Circle home. The man opened fire, killing a sheriff’s deputy and riddling neighboring homes with bullets. He died when his home burned to the ground.

Austin noted that the arrest reports for Santa Clarita include crimes that occur in county unincorporated parts of Santa Clarita, such as around Jakes Way in Canyon Country, long known for its crime rate.

“We would all be better off if we were all under one area,” Austin said. “Even the area by Jakes Way should be annexed so we can all take care of it.”

Alan Ferdman, 64, chairman of the Canyon Country Advisory Committee, said he wanted to invite Bossert to a meeting of his group.

“I don’t think it’s a very responsible thing to do, to just throw out some comment that some other area – that you don’t live in – happens to be less than you expect it to be,” Ferdman said.